**Hey, guys. Chapter 9 already! Three things to start. First, sorry for the wait. School got to me... Second, I know Loridas is a man in the real book, key word real. I changed him to a her for the sake of my story (you'll find out more later). Third, I think I'm going to aim for 25-30 chapters, but that isn't a positive yet. Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter!
-Chase
The Time for Ten - Chapter 9
Marina knock the Mog kid out with telekinesis, and then she runs over to him. Eight sprints behind her, and Adam is on Eight's tail. The three of them crouch around the boy. The rest of us huddle around those four.
"That's my cousin, Gregor. How did he get here?" Adam questions.
Gregor suddenly sits up again, and then crawls backwards, away from us. "Adam...who are these people?" He asks.
"They are the Garde." Adam says grimly.
"So I've come to the right place, Hannu?" Gregor says aloud but looking up into the air.
"Hannu...that's Number Three's name." Adam says, looking at me.
"What does that mean?" I ask Adam.
"Gregor, can you see and hear Hannu in your head?" Adam asks.
"Yes! He told me to come here, to this farm." Gregor responds, now used to the situation.
Adam stands up and pulls me and One aside.
"As you already know, One and I shared a consciousness for a while. We could see and hear each other, but no one else could. It started when I was hooked up to the mind-machine. I think the same happened with Gregor. Gregor shares a mind with Three, so he can possibly have Hannu's legacies!" Adam explains.
"Wait, you stole the legacy from me though. I can't make earthquakes anymore." One says.
"Right, so hopefully Hannu gave Gregor a legacy to help him out of the Mog base." Adam adds as he turns back to Gregor. "Do you have any legacies?" He asks.
Gregor nods and stands up. He holds out his wrist and clear red screen appears in front of him. The screen almost looks like it's made of water. He puts his wrist down and the screen disappears.
"Also..." He starts, and then knits his eyes in concentration. Suddenly Gregor becomes a foot or two taller, and starts looking very similar to Adam. "He called it age extortion. I don't know what it means, but I know I can change my age at will."
"Any age you want?" I ask.
Gregor nods.
"So Three wasn't an aeternus." I conclude.
"No, but he has advanced everything, more than all the other Garde, at least that's what his Cepan told him." Gregor says.
"What about other legacies? Like, can he do more than what he gave up for you or what he currently still has?" Eight asks.
"Yes, Three can control color." Gregor answers.
"What good does color do?" Nine puffs in annoyance.
"He has this disk in his chest. It is gray, the kind of color that looks endless, with his Lorien number on it. If he takes a certain color from an object and puts it in his disk, it changes into a weapon that the color symbolizes. Red, for instance, summons a large hunting knife." Gregor says, his talk more sophisticated with his older age. "Also, he can control time."
"Another time traveler? Sweet!" Nine exclaims happily.
"No, not time as in travel, but time as in motion. Like, slow motion and fast forwarding and all that jazz." Gregor responds.
"That's decides it. We need Three back alive ASAP. John, what're the stats on the other Life Crystal?" Six questions.
Before I can start, Gregor cuts in. "There's two things you should know about the other Life Crystals. First off, the Mogs know where they are and they're heavily guarded. Second, the second crystal can only heal one person, and that goes along with the other two also in hiding."
"So what you're saying is that only three more people can come back to life?" Nine asks.
Gregor nods solemnly.
"So it sounds like you know where the crystals are?" I ask him.
"I do. One is in the Himalayas, in the same cave as a Loralite Stone. Another is in a graveyard in England." He looks at Two. "The graveyard near the place you died. The third was recently discovered after an attack on Number Four and Number Six in Paradise, Ohio. They found it in some dungeon underneath a well." Gregor explains. "The fourth, as only our group knows, was in One's chest. It was special, as it was the only Life Crystal able to resurrect more than one person."
"Why haven't the Mogs taken the crystal?" Marina asks.
"Only the true owner of the Life Crystals can take one from its position in nature. We believe it to be you, Number Seven." Gregor says.
xxxxx
I feel all the eyes go on me, and I blush. I'm not the best in front of large crowds.
Ella had been looking at the ground since Gregor revealed the Crystal's locations, and only now did I realize why.
"We've been to the Loralite in the Himalayas. The cave collapsed on us as we teleported away. It's where Crayton died." As soon as I say it, Six, Eight, and Ella all look down and away. "There's no way we can recover it."
"Not unless we go back in time..." Two says out of nowhere.
"If we are time traveling, I'm so in." Nine says as if asking anyone to fight back.
"All right, lets have Two, Nine, Five, Gregor, Marina, and Eight go to the Himalayas. As for Paradise, lets have Six, Kal, Sam, Sarah, One, and me. That leaves Adam, Ella, and Malcolm to watch over the guys in the shed and the house. I'm gonna have BK and Dust stay here with you three, and then I'll take two Chimaera and they can take three of them. Does the plan sound good?" John asks.
Everybody nods, impressed.
Nine walks up and slaps John on the back. "Great thinking, Johnny-boy. Lets get moving!"
The next day, everybody says their goodbyes and takes needed items from their chests. All the Garde besides Ella now have their chests back, even though half of us either don't remember or have never seen what's inside. I watch Nine grab his staff, and Five his metal and rubber balls. Eight looks inside his chest, but comes out with nothing. Six grabs out a metal disk about the size of a fan cover. It has her number on it, and has three small cones coming out of the bottom. She places it on the ground and stands on it to find it is a hover-board. Light blue particles come out of the cones as she learns to control it. Four takes out his bracelet shield and his dagger, which he shoves in his back pocket. Then he reaches in and takes out a blue stone star. He walks over and sits down beside me.
"This is a talisman that Henri told me about. It's made of loralite and is carved to the shape of a star. It has this hole at the top which I tried to put string through, but it closes up when anything to hold it through there is nearby. I thought maybe one of you had the string to go with it?" Four finishes with a question.
I turn and open my chest. I rummage past the gloves and the tree branch to find a foot and a half long solid metal wire at the bottom of the chest. I grab it and hold it near the talisman. The metal suddenly becomes extremely hot and I toss it to John, who is fire resistant. He places it through the talisman, which is now glowing. The wire becomes limp, and John ties it around his neck. The knot glows red and then heals over with a molten lump. That necklace isn't coming off anytime soon. Then the talisman stops glowing and the string becomes solid again, now practically welded to John's neck.
"What the hell just happened?" He asks me.
All I can do is shrug. "What do you think it does?"
"I have no idea. I'm guessing whatever it is, though, has some connection between us." John says.
Six and Five fly low over our heads. They're laughing and enjoying themselves. It's good to be able to let it out once in a while.
One then walks up to her chest, along with Adam and Gregor.
"I've never seen what's in my chest." She tells us as she opens the lid.
Inside are a various amount of odd objects. One of them is a small pink stone. She picks it up and it begins to spark, along with One's whole body. She quickly drops it and then looks at me questioningly.
"Four! Where's that weird stone you had?" I yell to him. He is talking to Six, Nine, and Eight by the house.
"Which one, the clear, the black, or the yellow?" He yells back.
"The clear." I answer.
A six-inch long rock floats in front of me. I snag it from midair and turn to One. "Lay down." I tell her.
She does so and I start by placing the rock on her hand.
"That stings a little." She says.
I start to slowly move it up and down her arm, which starts to become bright yellow. I then do the other arm, then her head and all the way down to her feet. Finally, her whole body is glowing yellow. She tries to get up but then flinches back, as if it is too painful. The yellow subsides and she stands up.
"Were you only able to use electricity in your hands before?" I ask.
One nods.
"Well, now it should work everywhere!" I tell her cheerfully.
"What is that thing?" She asks.
"A Lorien Crystal. It seems you have a lot of want for crystals." I say with a grin.
"Actually..." She responds, reaching into her chest. "I do have a few more. This light green one here can levitate. This yellow one can shrink and grow to almost any size, and this brown one can mimic anybody's voice...as weird as it sounds." She explains, holding the three crystals up to me.
"That's really cool." I say.
"Mar! Duck!" I hear Adam yell, and I do so as a dual sided dagger goes flying over my head, and then comes back like a boomerang.
I turn around and glare at Adam.
"It wasn't me! Blame Gregor!" He says with his hands up.
"Sorry, Seven! I was experimenting with Three's stuff." He explains.
"It's okay." I answer with a smirk.
"All right, lets get ready to go!" John shouts for everyone to hear.
xxxxx
Sam walks with me into the house. After John's talk, I'm prepared for anything.
"So... Since we are separated from Eight, and hopefully he won't teleport in, have you been missing me?" Sam asks.
So many thoughts race through my mind in the split seconds before I respond. I like Sam. We've kissed. I also like Nine, and we kissed too. But then there's Four... We kissed, but I felt something then. Nine and Sam were almost like fillers in the gap. I can't think of who to go with, its been bugging me. Four is already taken, and I have two love-thirsty boys on my tail. "Of course." I decide to say.
"Good." Sam answers and then leans in, and so do I.
We kiss for a good five-seconds. Then we pull back and look at each other.
"You know, I've liked you since we met during the fight in Paradise, but I wasn't brave enough to tell you till Chicago." Sam tells me.
"Well, in a couple minutes you'll get a second try." I answer cheekily.
"All right, lets get ready to go!" We hear John shout from outside.
"C'mon." I say and tug him along by the arm.
We walk over and join the group of fifteen. I look around and see the serious faces that everyone has put on. We are getting closer to the end. Our group has become stronger, and stronger still we may. But now is the time for us to split once again, and this time into three groups. Both missions for a Lorien Life Crystal, but one in the Himalayas and one in Paradise, Ohio.
Earlier, when John was talking to Nine, Eight, and I, he let us in on some precognitions he was having. To add, that was a newer legacy he realized he had developed. In his dream, he had seen three horrific things. One of them was of a person being stabbed through the heart by Setråkus Ra, and the feeling of a scar burning itself into his leg. Another was of Two and Ella standing in a corner in front of a limp Kal, and they were facing hundreds of Mogadorians. The last thing he saw was himself, Nine, and me standing back-to-back on top of a stone tower, with the other still alive guard floating around us, dead. Setråkus was also floating around in circles, dead, but the world was a terrible sight. The three of us had supposedly panicked faces on, and then a giant beast rips up and into the air, with hundreds of eyes and a mile long. It was hideous, and riding on its head was Sarah. Her eyes were bloodshot and red, her teeth sharp and her features crooked. After that, he said it flashed forward to a scene of him standing over Sarah, with Nine laying on the ground, dead, and me holding down Sarah's arms. Four says he was holding a knife in stabbing position, and as he came down with it, the vision disappeared and he woke up. This has been happening for multiple nights now, apparently.
I snap back to the present. John has been talking.
"-And that means you need to be at full attention at all times. Good luck, everyone." He finishes.
The Paradise group and the Himalayas group separate, as do the staying home group. Kal holds out her hands for us and we each grab each other's. I have my hover-board under my arm. John has his new talisman around his neck. I notice Gregor has Three's dual sided blade in a new sheath he made. I see Nine with his staff and Five with his objects in his pocket. Mar is holding hands with Eight, and she gives me a sympathetic smile. I don't understand why until I realize Sam is holding my hand and smiling wickedly. I laugh to myself. The Garde are strong, we can fight and do this. But no matter how much I trust in us, I can't help but think that one of us isn't going to step foot on this farm house again. Alive, at least.
**So, I left you with a thinking chapter. What do you think the talisman does? Do you think Mar and John have a special connection with it? What do you think of John's precognitions? Do you think Six is right with her prediction? Please review, they've been lacking a bit and they really help me to write. Thanks so much for the support!
-Chase
